Boycotting Zionism

hundredmillionlifetimes · Oct 11, 2007

gek-opel said:
In some respects I agree with you HMLT, the Muslim as other, as enemy as keystone holding the whole western liberal/capitalistic project in place is accurate (replacing of course the figure of the Soviet Union)... however it is in other senses unavoidable once one is drawn into the worship of power- of course it would then be up to the individual in question to decide whether such a "package" was for them, and Vim obviously decided long ago so. And to that extent although I think he is not an out-and-out racist, he is one who endlessly seeks to legitimise systems and beliefs which are themselves to a certain extent constituted by the racial construct. It is a subtle and pervasive form of prejudice, (more subtle than him ever saying in so many words that Muslims are, as you put it "evil, are crazed sub-humans hell-bent on destroying all of humanity"), which is inextricably bound together with the rest of his world view.

I agree with this analysis, though it is necessary to tease out exactly what is meant by an 'out-and-out' racist, as opposed to a 'normal' one. It isn't enough that we accept the stereotypical view of the manifest racist as purely the violent 'thrill-seeking' thug intent on genocide, but equally the latent 'white man's burden' with his onerous 'duty' to bring [white western] civilization to the savage native Other, in addition to recognizing racism itself as a fundamental phantasmatic displacement of an underlying class antagonism. Needless to say, it is because racism is so endemic in the West, is so naturalised, institutionalized, and depoliticised, that it becomes so easy to dismiss Vimothy's variety as the common-or-garden 'normal' instanciation.

hundredmillionlifetimes · Oct 11, 2007

Vimothy said:
To compare them to Nazis (get it? because they're jews -- so it's almost funny!!!), is pathetic, and shows us on what side of the fence you're sitting.

Firstly, Zionism is a racist ideology, just as Nazism was, and the majority of Jewish people across the world both acknowledge this and, as a result, oppose Zionism. Support for Zionism doesn't depend on someone's religion, as we also have such as the neo-cons, assorted religious fundamentalists, and people like yourself embracing it.

Vimothy said:
... if the Israelis were Arabs, no one in the Middle East would give a damn.

No Israelis are Arab? Your prejudice and ignorance is indeed startling. There are MORE Arabs and Palestinians in Israel-Palestine than there are Jews.

Some figures on the population of Israel-Palestine:

Israel population (approx): 7m, of which 18.5 percent are Arab and 77.5 percent are Jewish (as we know, many immigrant white settlers, hundreds of thousands of Russian Christians, for instance [***even the pro-Zionist Peter Hitchens confirms this] , are not actually Jewish at all, but only nominally and misleadingly so.

Jews: 5.4m minus at least 0.5m giving just under 5m.

Palestinians:In Israel, 1.3m; West Bank, 2.4m; Gaza Strip, 1.4m, and over 4m refugees, mainly in Syria.

Israel-Palestine is not a 'secular democracy' but a sectarian, theocratic-Zionist state practicing/implementing oppressive Apartheid policies seemingly against an approximate majority of its population, funded to the tune of tens of billions in military aid by the U.S. to further that appalling agenda.

*** "One sign of the way things are going is that in Israel itself – not even counting the occupied Arab zones of the West Bank and Gaza – the most popular boy’s name is now Muhammad.

There are also quite a few Vladimirs, thanks to the arrival during the last days of the Soviet Union of nearly one million not-very-Jewish Russians, with very few questions asked.

As many as 500,000 of these – experts disagree on how big the problem is – are either not Jewish at all, nothing in particular, or actively Christian.

Recently, to the annoyance of Orthodox Jews, several hundred Russian recruits to the Israeli army insisted on swearing their oath of allegiance on the Christian New Testament alone."

Vimothy said:
There is one group of people calling for the total extermination of a specific race in the Middle East, and they are not Israeli. (Related question: If Zionists = Nazis, why don't Palestinians = Jews?

Race? Judaism is a religion, not a 'race'. You're hopelessly confused about even the most basic concepts.

Vimothy said:
Or, to put it another way, why is there still a Palestinian people and not a smoking pile of bones and some stern words from the UN?

This is your disavowed fantasy, isn't it? The only reason Israel's Zionists have not committed further atrocities against Palestinians is because most of the world's population opposes their racist policies, and the UN has been repeatedly condemning Israel's policies for decades.

Vimothy said:
I know what other Arab countries would do if they were in Israel's place).

If an Arab country was other than an Arab country, if it was different to what it actually is, if it was Israel rather than another Arab country ... yes, we already know what that country would do, is actually doing ...

hundredmillionlifetimes · Oct 12, 2007

crackerjack said:
I don't doubt for one minute that you believe what you say, and are not just an idiot who has backed himself into a corner and is now trying to fight his way out with toxic rhetoric and CAPITAL LETTERS.

Really, I don't think you have even the most elementary understanding of racism, preferring to slander those who expose and draw attention to it as engaging in "toxic rhetoric." Vimothy's racism is really not the issue here; the discussion was attempting to analyse the ideological basis of his racism. Denying this, regretably and tragically, makes you a fellow traveller.

crackerjack said:
But it simply ain't good enough to repeat that Vim is a racist because you say so, and it's up to me to work out why.

I was analysing the basis of his racism [really, if you're still arguing this point about his 'supposed' racism you're totally beyond hope; his diatribes on this forum against Arabs, Muslims and Islam are racism at its purest], and it is indeed up to you to 'work out why' for yourself, not because anyone 'says so.'

crackerjack said:
Come on, normally you like the part where you pick bits out. And fwiw I don't defend his diatribes, racist or otherwise.

So what are you defending, then?

crackerjack said:
Vim's views on the ME, as with most things, are dangeroulsy one-sided and simplistic, But that doesn't make him a racist.

So what does make him a racist in your considered opinion, his "dangeroulsy one-sided and simplistic" views aside?

crackerjack said:
Edit: And if there's any falling into traps round here, it's you doing the tumbling. You could've run with Vim's ignorance of the facts in Sudan, instead you've just come in screaming.

On the contrary again: I re-activated this thread, after no posts here for a number of months, with an update on the latest news concerning the proposed discussion of a boycott by Britain's academics of Israel's universities. Vimothy's utterly disingenuous, irrelevant ,and immediate response was to deflect from the subject with a list of arbitrary body-counts from assorted historical tragedies as compiled by a Zionist propagandist, with the clear intention of 'arguing' that whatever atrocities Israel may commit, they are still yet perfectly acceptable because they're not as bad as previous or other ones. Ironically, the very need to list greater historical war crimes in defense of the present Israeli acts secretly implies that Israel is committing such horrible crimes that only the absolute trump-card of such massive past atrocities can redeem them.

Vimothy came in screaming, with his twisted dogma and wholesale abuse and misappropriation of 'facts' in support of his racist propaganda, and now you find yourself lost and completely out of your depth. Perhaps, like some - if not many - posters here, you should stick to the trivial threads, about milk-drinking preferences, about London bus-drivers, about dumb and cynical Radiohead/Prince 'medium is the message' marketing tactics, and stop pomo-gratuitously conflating such idle, if harmless, vacuous gossip with the extremely serious and lethal subject at hand ...

Slothrop · Oct 12, 2007

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Vimothy's utterly disingenuous, irrelevant ,and immediate response was to deflect from the subject with a list of arbitrary body-counts from assorted historical tragedies as compiled by a Zionist propagandist, with the clear intention of 'arguing' that whatever atrocities Israel may commit, they are still yet perfectly acceptable because they're not as bad as previous or other ones.

vimothy said:
Let me try and make this clear:

I AM NOT SAYING THAT GIVEN THAT MORE PEOPLE DIED UNDER MAO THAN ANYONE ELSE, HMLT SHOULD SHUT UP ABOUT ISRAEL.

Ok?

fwiw

mixed_biscuits · Oct 12, 2007

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Perhaps, like some - if not many - posters here, you should stick to the trivial threads, about milk-drinking preferences, about London bus-drivers, about dumb and cynical Radiohead/Prince 'medium is the message' marketing tactics, and stop pomo-gratuitously conflating such idle, if harmless, vacuous gossip with the extremely serious and lethal subject at hand ...

Is arguing with a handful of people on a music forum the most useful thing you could do to deal with the serious subject at hand? Surely it's one of the least useful things? What influence do any of the posters here have, really?

john eden · Oct 12, 2007

vimothy said:
Yes - because Communists are incapable of killing people, aren't they?

Well clearly everyone is capable of killing, so this is about as useful a contribution as bellowing "all men are potential rapists!" in a discussion of gender politics.

zhao · Oct 12, 2007

may be be a moot point but Stalin and Mao were not "communists". they were dictators who used the flag of communism to gain power.

Mr. Tea · Oct 12, 2007

zhao said:
may be be a moot point but Stalin and Mao were not "communists". they were dictators who used the flag of communism to gain power.

I'm getting pretty tired of this argument, to be blunt. I mean, I'm sure you wouldn't have too much difficulty finding Protestants who'll swear blind the Pope isn't a Christian, Sunnis who'd deny that Khameini is a Muslim, etc. etc...perhaps Vimothy will inform us that plantation owners in 18th century Jamaica weren't really capitalists.

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

Jeesus ...

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

zhao said:
may be be a moot point but Stalin and Mao were not "communists". they were dictators who used the flag of communism to gain power.

And you could say the same thing about Hitler, Franco, Hoxha, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, etc ...

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

On racism - race has nothing to do with it. It's culture that it important, and nothing about culture is inherent to a particular race, IMHO. And it's not Islam that I am opposed to (lord knows how many times I have said this), but Islamism, political Islam, neo-Salafi Islam, Wahabism, Jihadism, the "Global Islamic Insurgency", whatever you want to call it.

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

Also, think the idea that the "neo-liberal hegemon" actively requires a foe, be it Islamist or Communist (Gek mentions this upthread), to be the intellectual equivalent of burying your head in the sand. There is a real threat, just as there was a real threat from Communism (The Power of Nightmares notwithstanding). It also (again) neatly avoids the whole thorny issue of ever having to condem political movements that are "non-white", non-western or third world. One can be so "anti-racist" that one no longer sees the third world in its own terms, but looks at it as nothing more than a reactive subject, promted by the west in all its actions. The third world / Mid East doesn't have agency, and so terrorism originating there doesn't actually originate there at all, but stems from our actions, or those of our governments.

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

Firstly, Zionism is a racist ideology, just as Nazism was, and the majority of Jewish people across the world both acknowledge this and, as a result, oppose Zionism. Support for Zionism doesn't depend on someone's religion, as we also have such as the neo-cons, assorted religious fundamentalists, and people like yourself embracing it.

There is a clear and qualitative difference between Nazism and Zionism. I think it's fairly obvious. There is also a quantitative difference, which should be obvious as well.

No Israelis are Arab? Your prejudice and ignorance is indeed startling. There are MORE Arabs and Palestinians in Israel-Palestine than there are Jews.

Come off it - this is just a massive fudge. You know exactly what I mean. If Israel was not Israel, but was an Arab state (not just by population, but by constitution), then no one would be interested in the plight of the Palestinians. If I am being too harsh on people, then answer my question: why Israel and not any of the numerous other states in the Mid East that oppress and mistreat Muslims? What about the recent attacks on Palestinians by the Lebanese? They're pretty suspect anyway, fairly liberal (for the Mid East), pluralistic, possible ties to some sort of neo-con/liberal cabal. I would have thought you'd be all over them.

Also, although you are now telling me that Israel is an Arab state, you've just finished explaining to me that Israel is a racist, Zionist (i.e. Jewish), state.

Israel population (approx): 7m, of which 18.5 percent are Arab and 77.5 percent are Jewish (as we know, many immigrant white settlers, hundreds of thousands of Russian Christians, for instance [***even the pro-Zionist Peter Hitchens confirms this] , are not actually Jewish at all, but only nominally and misleadingly so.

Jews: 5.4m minus at least 0.5m giving just under 5m.

Palestinians:In Israel, 1.3m; West Bank, 2.4m; Gaza Strip, 1.4m, and over 4m refugees, mainly in Syria.

Ok

Israel-Palestine is not a 'secular democracy' but a sectarian, theocratic-Zionist state practicing/implementing oppressive Apartheid policies seemingly against an approximate majority of its population, funded to the tune of tens of billions in military aid by the U.S. to further that appalling agenda.

It sure looks like a secular democracy to me. Do they have a free press? Do they have elections? Do they have an independent judiciary? Do they honor contracts?

*** "One sign of the way things are going is that in Israel itself – not even counting the occupied Arab zones of the West Bank and Gaza – the most popular boy’s name is now Muhammad.

Ok, again, but I'm not sure where you're goin with this. I know that there is a huge youth bulge in the Middle East, at the moment. Maybe in twenty years time you won't be talking about Israel as a Zionist entity (I've never heard anyone talk about Pakistan in the same way, btw), but as a secular pluralistic state with a large Jewish minority. Maybe the large numbers of bored young men has something to do with the levels of violence.

There are also quite a few Vladimirs, thanks to the arrival during the last days of the Soviet Union of nearly one million not-very-Jewish Russians, with very few questions asked.

Click to expand...

Again, true, but so what? The critierea asked by Israel for citizenship is the same as that asked by the Nazis for a ticket to the concentration camps. Maybe that's a bit silly of the Israelis, a little sentimental, but it's understandable, no?

As many as 500,000 of these – experts disagree on how big the problem is – are either not Jewish at all, nothing in particular, or actively Christian.

Recently, to the annoyance of Orthodox Jews, several hundred Russian recruits to the Israeli army insisted on swearing their oath of allegiance on the Christian New Testament alone."

Click to expand...

Surely you think this is good thing.

Race? Judaism is a religion, not a 'race'. You're hopelessly confused about even the most basic concepts.

Click to expand...

Who is calling for the extermination of Judaism? People are calling for the extermination of Israel, of Jews. They are doing it in the name of Islam and in the name of the the Arab Middle East:

And the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!

This is your disavowed fantasy, isn't it? The only reason Israel's Zionists have not committed further atrocities against Palestinians is because most of the world's population opposes their racist policies, and the UN has been repeatedly condemning Israel's policies for decades.

Click to expand...

"Fantasy" - yeah, the Islamists are Mummy and the Jews are Daddy.

This just reinforces what I've been saying - all the other massacres of Muslims in the Middle East were not stopped by the UN or the international community. Why?

gek-opel · Oct 12, 2007

vimothy said:
Also, think the idea that the "neo-liberal hegemon" actively requires a foe, be it Islamist or Communist (Gek mentions this upthread), to be the intellectual equivalent of burying your head in the sand. There is a real threat, just as there was a real threat from Communism (The Power of Nightmares notwithstanding). It also (again) neatly avoids the whole thorny issue of ever having to condem political movements that are "non-white", non-western or third world. One can be so "anti-racist" that one no longer sees the third world in its own terms, but looks at it as nothing more than a reactive subject, promted by the west in all its actions. The third world / Mid East doesn't have agency, and so terrorism originating there doesn't actually originate there at all, but stems from our actions, or those of our governments.

This last point is a deliberate misreading of a subtle argument regarding the psychic constitution of the western neo-liberal life-world's mind-state... Of course the residents of the third world and the middle East have agency in-themselves. That was not the issue which was being discussed though, rather that certain systems of political/economic organisation form themselves as much around positive beliefs as around a conception of the Other-as-enemy. Of course you, as a fully signed up participant in this world view would claim that there is a "real threat". And also you are inaccurate to suggest that the threat has not historically been molded by "our" actions... not entirely so, of course, but to a significant extent and at various junctures in history, the Islamist position has been strengthened through "our" geopolitical interventions. So it is not a merely reactive subject without its own agency but previous meddlings in the business of the Middle East have funded it, allowed it to expand, and later military interventions have served to give it the ideal conditions within which to survive. Finally the psychological need for an enemy and the attention thus given to it has served to publicise and bolster the reputation of that enemy, specifically in terms of "Islamizing" third world opposition to the west/liberation struggles...

Slothrop · Oct 12, 2007

gek-opel said:
And also you are inaccurate to suggest that the threat has not historically been molded by "our" actions... not entirely so, of course, but to a significant extent and at various junctures in history, the Islamist position has been strengthened through "our" geopolitical interventions. So it is not a merely reactive subject without its own agency but previous meddlings in the business of the Middle East have funded it, allowed it to expand, and later military interventions have served to give it the ideal conditions within which to survive.

It's obvious that almost all 'threats to the west' have to some extent been molded by previous western interventions, and I don't think Vimothy is denying that. But it's also easy to spend so much time drawing attention to this (albeit for good reasons, ie we have more chance of influencing the governments of the US and the UK than the government of Iran) that you start to apply moral responsibility only to "us" (or rather to "our government") and not to "them." Hence (for instance) the moral responsibility for civilians killed by insurgents in Iraq is placed at the door of the US, since they created that situation by invading. On the other hand, the American invasion of Afghanistan in response to 9/11 is something they can be held culpable for.

We seem to get a similar thing in class politics as well - upper middle class parents who send their children to private schools are socially irresponsible and should be despised, whereas (working class) armed robbers are victims of society and should be pitied. Because only the middle class are capable of moral action, everyone else just responds mindlessly.

While I agree with the principle of being more vocal in your criticism of that which you have more chance to influence, I'm worried by the sort of woolly thinking it seems to lead some people into.

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

crackerjack said:
Where does this figure come from? That's more than ten times higher than the highest I've seen (generally somewhere round 2-500,000)

Found the article I was thinking of, last night. It was from Benador Associates, not Reeves, and the figure was 2 million in the last decade, not 10 or 1.

I got that wrong, but really, with so many mass murderers, with so many deaths, with the blood bath that last century gave us, it's pretty hard to keep track on all the numbers of every single conflict.

Mr. Tea · Oct 12, 2007

Slothrop said:
... Hence (for instance) the moral responsibility for civilians killed by insurgents in Iraq is placed at the door of the US, since they created that situation by invading. On the other hand, the American invasion of Afghanistan in response to 9/11 is something they can be held culpable for.

We seem to get a similar thing in class politics as well - upper middle class parents who send their children to private schools are socially irresponsible and should be despised, whereas (working class) armed robbers are victims of society and should be pitied. Because only the middle class are capable of moral action, everyone else just responds mindlessly.

While I agree with the principle of being more vocal in your criticism of that which you have more chance to influence, I'm worried by the sort of woolly thinking it seems to lead some people into.

OTM, as they say.

vimothy · Oct 12, 2007

Mr. Tea said:
OTM, as they say.

Also, is it really the case that endlessly criticising Israel and other Western governments, while ignoring the actions of non-democratic, non-western states, is the most productive method, with more chance of affecting lasting and just change.

For instance, the Cold War wasn't only kenetic and economic, it was cultural as well. People felt that liberal democracy and capitalism were better choices than Communism. The Western media and intellectual community endlessly criticises Western society and governments, and so do the Middle Eastern media and intellectual commnunity. Where does that leave everybody else? I'm sure that there are people living in dictatorships who, as a result of government controled media that prints solidly anti-western propaganda, and the influx of Western media that publishes stuff from a similar perspective (pro-Western media being banned), believe that there countries are fairer and more just than those in the West. Bin Laden reads Moore and Fisk, and in his communications (with the West, of course - it's different story in Arabic) sounds like a social justice campaigner.

Might concentrating only on our own government's actions not be letting a bevvy of dictators off the hook? Might it not be reducing pressure for them to change?

gek-opel · Oct 12, 2007

I've not argued here that sole responsibility for the deaths of civilians killed in Iraq rests with the US for invading. Obviously the majority of them were not killed directly by them, but by forces set into motion by their act of invading itself, and the manner in which the post invasion restructuring was conducted. So in part it stems from sins of omission (omitting to plan, negligence as to the probable consequences of their actions) which renders apportioning blame or moral responsibility or even criminal culpability a more knotty and difficult issue. It would perhaps be best to say then that the Americans have been guilty of gross negligence here.

In the case of trans-national radical Islamism the threat which is real is exaggerated. I personally do not feel threatened by it as whilst it exists its likelihood of affecting me is smaller than more humdrum problems like accidentally falling down the stairs in my own home. By emphasising the threat as Western governments have done out of all proportion to its real danger, they have bolstered it. It remains however a tiny one in proportion to other dangers, both local and global. However it obviously serves both at a psychological level and a power-politics level to have this enemy, to inflate them into a grand foe at a civilizational scale. The methods which could have been deployed to defeat the actual foe have not been used, and the very opposite has occurred.

Also the kind of bullshit clash of civilizations nonsense serves to obscure real issues (ie issues of global class and environmental collapse)-- ie a form of civilizational identity politics which serves the hegemonic forces both in the West and in Radical Islam.

gek-opel · Oct 12, 2007

vimothy said:
Also, is it really the case that endlessly criticising Israel and other Western governments, while ignoring the actions of non-democratic, non-western states, is the most productive method, with more chance of affecting lasting and just change.

For instance, the Cold War wasn't only kenetic and economic, it was cultural as well. People felt that liberal democracy and capitalism were better choices than Communism. The Western media and intellectual community endlessly criticises Western society and governments, and so do the Middle Eastern media and intellectual commnunity. Where does that leave everybody else? I'm sure that there are people living in dictatorships who, as a result of government controled media that prints solidly anti-western propaganda, and the influx of Western media that publishes stuff from a similar perspective (pro-Western media being banned), believe that there countries are fairer and more just than those in the West. Bin Laden reads Moore and Fisk, and in his communications (with the West, of course - it's different story in Arabic) sounds like a social justice campaigner.

Might concentrating only on our own government's actions not be letting a bevvy of dictators off the hook? Might it not be reducing pressure for them to change?

The threat must be acknowledged as what it really is, not by inflating it into a battle of civilizations. It must be dealt with in a sensitive, subtle and insidious manner, not in a primitive out-of-date "war" (think 3GW stuff upwards).

A lot of what you say is pure bull tho Vim, tantamount to claiming that we must not give succour to our intractable foe, that we must silence the voice of the traitors in our western societies. For or against y'know?

Though it was intriguing to note how Bin Laden's most recent anniversary communiques were clearly aimed at a Western audience, trying to hit certain anti-capitalist and environmentalist buttons. I'm unconvinced that anyone would actually take his message at face value however (although maybe he is really talking not to convince the white liberal Westerner, but rather the Islamic westerner... hmm...)

Boycotting Zionism

Banned

Banned

Banned

Tight but Polite

_________________________

male pale and stale

there are no accidents

Let's Talk About Ceps

yurp

yurp

yurp

yurp

yurp

entered apprentice

Tight but Polite

yurp

Let's Talk About Ceps

yurp

entered apprentice

entered apprentice